THE inhabitants of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean notoriously destroyed themselves by chopping down the trees that made their island habitable.

And they did this not for the short-term economic gains for which man has usually felled trees -- to use as fuel or to clear land -- but to make the rattan-ropes and rollers for hauling and erecting the great stone statues for which Easter Island is now alone famous. Obsessive monument-construction brought about the collapse of an entire civilisation, simply because the creation of monuments was thought to be more important than counting their cost.

Enter Metro North, better known to the cognoscenti of human megalithic folly, as Necro North -- work on which will begin in April.

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